


The Things I'll Never Say

by theparanoidwriter



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-23
Updated: 2014-02-23
Packaged: 2018-01-13 11:50:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1225237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theparanoidwriter/pseuds/theparanoidwriter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Just a little something I originally wrote for one of the co-authors of "As Much as I Ever Could" (which I highly recommend you go read if you haven't already owo.<br/>Based off of this headcannon I have of Jean as a poet.<br/>I don't think there's really anything too triggering? Um</p>
<p>TRIGGER WARNINGS: Death, description of death(it's horribly done, but still)....I think that's it.</p>
<p>Enjoy ^-^</p>
    </blockquote>





	The Things I'll Never Say

**Author's Note:**

> Just a little something I originally wrote for one of the co-authors of "As Much as I Ever Could" (which I highly recommend you go read if you haven't already owo.  
> Based off of this headcannon I have of Jean as a poet.  
> I don't think there's really anything too triggering? Um
> 
> TRIGGER WARNINGS: Death, description of death(it's horribly done, but still)....I think that's it.
> 
> Enjoy ^-^

Jean looked around the room once, twice, three times, and one more time until he was sure that everybody was either asleep or out of the room. He grabbed the small bag he had with his belongings and pulled out a small pad of paper filled with lines of black ink and a pen. He adjusted his blanket cover to allow some of the moonlight to shine in so he could see the page he was writing on.  
It was the night before graduation and there were some words in his head that he had to write down. These Things I'll Never Say, those were the words written across the cover of it, penned after hours of labor curling the letters and ensuring each mark was just right. He flipped through the pages of penned lines and inked illustrations until he reached the last empty page.  
The tip of the pen glided across the parchment leaving behind it a trail of jet black swirls, dips, and curves. They weren't words; they were much more than that. Jean couldn't quite put a word to them, but the poems he wrote in his notebook felt more like just a bunch of words tossed together. As he wrote, he felt his chest constrict and his breath hitched. He groaned when he had to write for class, but he groaned when something interrupted him from these late night sessions.  
The pen's movements were quick tonight as Jean fervidly released the thoughts swarming his mind and pounding in his chest. It pounded like a drum that grew louder and louder until he swore his eardrums would split and everybody else would wake and hear it. This always happened and the only way to ease it was to let the pen and ink do its job. He hunched his shoulders, tongue out.  
“Jean?”  
Jean shoved the paper under his pillow and cursed mentally as he knocked over his inkwell in his haste. Of all the voices. “Yeah, Marco?”  
A pause. “Tomorrow.”  
Neither of them said another word more on the subject; they both knew. Tomorrow they were graduating. They'd be safe from the titans in the inner walls where they could fuck off, eat well, and get fat. They had spent three long years working for this moment.  
Jean couldn't help the feeling in his gut; he couldn't name it but all he knew was that he had waited until eleven thirty to even pull out his pen and paper and get that feeling out.  
“...Jean?”  
“Yeah?”  
“Never mind, it was silly.”  
What was Marco hiding? “No, what is it?” He wanted to get back to his writing, but something in Marco's tone caught his interest.  
“I was just wondering if there might be some meat tomorrow.”  
Jean smiled and shook his head. “You dork. Good night.” He rolled over into the ink mess.  
“Good night, Jean.”  
He waited for the springs moving stopped and Marco's breathing calmed to its regular pattern.  
One one-thousand. Two one-thousand. Three one-thousand. Inhale. One one-thousand. Two one-thousand. Three one-thousand. Exhale.  
Marco was asleep. Jean let the moonlight pour in again, the stains had already set into the mattress. Too late to fix now. He frowned at the edge of his pad where the ink had pooled. There was no way to fix that.  
The ink fumes rose up and stung his eyes. He had to air out the room, or his bed at least. Jean snuck out of his bed, pad in hand and and slid open the window just a crack. He looked up into the night sky and sought out the constellations Marco had shown him a week after they met.  
Marco had told him the stories behind each one, but Jean couldn't repeat a single word – he hadn't been listening. Instead, he had made his own constellations, finding his then best friend's face in the stars above them.  
That was one of the things about Marco. Jean had taken years to get just a friend or two, but Marco took one week to be his best friend. Only, Jean realized after a year that Marco wasn't just his best friend – he was in love with Marco Bodt. All his poems, letters, all the illustrations in his pad were of Marco, or for him. He hid it from everybody, especially Marco, but that would all change tomorrow. He told himself that tomorrow he would tell Marco how he really felt, or if the words caught in his throat, he would show him the pad.  
A light breeze made its way through the crack. The pages fluttered enough to land on one page. Jean looked long and hard at it, and fell asleep soon enough.  
Jean didn't see much of Marco the next day and the last moment that he did see Marco was when he frantically tugged at the gear on a dead body. His was broken and the titans were coming. He heard their footsteps and his panic increased. He tugged harder but it wouldn't go away.  
“Jean, calm down!”  
Marco. He dropped to the ground nearby and ran off again to gather the titans' attention from him.  
They were being slaughtered there in Trost. Jean couldn't utter the words : Be safe, Marco.  
There wasn't time though because the titans kept coming in. He couldn't seek out Marco, only utter those same words over and over again in his head.  
When Jaeger filled in the hole with the boulder and everyday winded down, he was sent on cleanup. The sooner this was over with, the better. Watching his squad eaten before him and all the others was more than he had ever intended to see; he was more than ready for the Military Police with Marco.  
Speaking of Marco.... Where was he anyway? Sure they had been busy with the titans, but he thought he would have seen him by now. Marco always had a way of finding Jean; it was like he knew just when he needed him.  
Jean took a few steps and froze when he saw.

Marco was propped up against a building. Half of his face was eaten, his left arm rested against his lap. His ribs poked out on his right side which had been eaten away as well, his entire right arm missing. There was a dull, glassy look in his eyes and his smile had been reduced to a teeth baring flat line.

His mind flashed to the image of Marco the wind had flipped his pad to last night. A young Marco, no, younger because they were all still young. Alive. Smiling. Constellations spread across those freckled cheeks of his and the biggest star of them all shining in his eyes. The first time he met him.  
It was before they lined up before Keith Shadis, when they were all still trickling in.

Jean's parents had dropped him off, said a few words then left. He had turned and saw the back of some boy's head, talking to an old lady with more than her fair share of grey hair and wrinkles. Must be the kid's grandmother, he had shrugged and turned to leave when the boy spoke.

“I'm going to miss you, Mom.”

“Me too. Be safe, Marco, okay?” She had smoothed his right arm then kissed what he could only assume was Marco's right cheek.

The two had hugged a while when his mother whispered something in his ear and smiled then pulled away. 

Marco had turned in my direction. I'd only seen his face three seconds before I averted my gaze and alked off briskly, embarrassed for staring too long. Three seconds was more than Jean needed to steel that face in his memory. That night, he had pulled out his pad which he had originally intended to use to write about the success he planned to have. But that wasn't what he did. When sleep refused to come to him, Jean had sat in the windowsill and drawn out the freckled face he recalled from before. 

It all had poured out so easily. Things with Marco were always easy, except when it mattered most. Jean looked in denial at the dead boy before him. This wasn't Marco. Not his Marco. His Marco was somewhere and would be there soon, because something in that freckled face of his would alert him that Jean needed him and right now, Jean needed Marco more than anything else.  
He ghosted through the questioning by some woman asking for Marco's name, and through the bonfire. He ghosted through as trainees swarmed away, not willing to join the Survey Corps. He was there, and some parts of his mind may have been, but for the most part, he was as much a ghost as Marco.

They were dismissed and that night, Jean was restless. The ink fumes had gone, but the stain was still there. He slipped down from his bed and sat in the windowsill.

The titans must have reached into the sky and eaten the stars too because when he looked for his Marco constellation, he found the right half of them missing. He sought out the Big Dipper, and the right was gone. Orion's right half. Little Dipper. The night sky mocked him.

He slid from the windowsill and back onto his bed. Something poked at the back of his head and he lifted his pillow to see what it was – his pad. He took it in his hands, running one finger across the cover. 

Words could never describe Marco Bodt, but this was as close to capturing him as anyone or anything would get.

Jean flipped through the pages, much slower this time. There were pictures of Marco laughing. Marco in his gear. Marco in his casual clothes. Marco with his bedhead. Marco was everywhere and alive in this book in ways the real Marco couldn't be. Not anymore. He smiled with tears in his eyes, but they didn't fall until he hit the last piece – the letter he had written to Marco had he been unable to voice his feelings.

Dear Marco,

The dear seems a bit formal, but I'm used to writing that. Did you know that I have been writing letters to you every day since the day I met you? Do you remember the moment? It was three seconds long but I will never forget it. The small 'o' your mouth made as you turned, not sure what your mom was pointing at, then the way your eyes twinkled and a smile spread across your face. You wore your hair the same way then, parted down the middle. Playing it safe, like my brother might say. You always did play it safe, you play it back even out in training. I know you did, you're always looking out for everybody else.  
You've got this sixth sense that you know whenever people need you, and you're there. Even if you need help, you put others before yourself. You idiot, you need to think about you too.  
But...you know... if you don't always do, I thought I should tell you that I think about you. A lot.  
Fuck. I'm usually more eloquent than this when I write, I promise.  
But even as I write this, I have this constricting feeling in my chest and that's because...I love you. I love you more than Sasha loves food, and I love you more than Connie loves Sasha. I don't know any other way than to tell you, that I am in love with you, Marco Bodt.  
I'm in love with the spark in your eyes, with that one cowlick you have early in the morning that you rush to fix before anybody else wakes and sees (yes I did catch you), with every single one of your freckles (twenty seven on your face. Are there more somewhere else?), with your knack to calm down everybody, with the extra pounds you frown at in the mirrors (I saw that too). I don't think there's a single thing I don't love about you.  
And I really hope you feel the same way, because you mean the world to me and I can't think of anything better than being in the Military Police with my boyfriend, the best boyfriend ever.

 

The rest was lost to the ink blot, but it left enough to get his point across. 

Jean moved quickly, but a few tears still fell onto the page before he moved it away. He crushed the bottom of his palm to the bridge of his nose and let the tears fall. He didn't care if the others heard. 

He cried not only for Marco's death, but the death of what could have been. He cried for Marco being alone, and most likely afraid when he died. He cried because he couldn't help Marco. Because he couldn't tell anybody what had happened. Because he couldn't say anything. Because he never said anything. He cried and was wracked with sobs until the sun peeked above the horizon.

He wiped the tears from his face and looked down at the pad before him. With one of the pages from the back, he covered it again and bent over it. What little ink he could salvage was used as he glided the pen across the new cover. When he finished, he looked back at the book's new cover: These Things I never Got to Say.


End file.
